1 Kings 5:5 “I intend to build a house for the name of the Lord my God, as the Lord said to David my father, ‘Your son, whom I will set on your throne in your place, shall build the house for my name.’”
In the study of Solomon’s temple, we should keep in mind that this temple is meant to be a shadow of a greater temple that is described in the New Testament. Solomon’s temple was to represent the dwelling place of God on earth. Its design, its furnishings, and all the ceremonies conducted therein, pointed to this. But in the New Testament we are told that “The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man” (Acts 17:24). And so we are meant to realize that the physical temple pointed to something much greater.
What are we to understand from this? What does the New Testament say? Well, for one, we are told that the temple represents the physical body of Christ. John 2:19-21 records part of a conversation between Jesus and the Jews in which He said this: “’Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’The Jews then said, ‘It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?’ But he was speaking about the temple of his body.” You see, Jesus’ body was, in essence, the place in which the Holy Spirit dwelled. And as John 1:14 tells us, “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”
But then, we also are told that the Church is the spiritual body of Christ. Therefore, the Church, likewise, represents the dwelling place of God on earth. It is all described in the following way in Ephesians 2:19-22: “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.”
Then there is a third way in which the Old Testament Temple represents the dwelling place of God on earth. You see, while the Church represents His dwelling place in a collective sense, the body of each person who is a part of the Church is, individually, a dwelling place of God. We are clearly told this in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20: “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”
It is to these wonderful truths that God would have our eyes opened as we read about Solomon’s temple. It was a beautiful place. It was a place of wonder. But not nearly as wonderful as the realities to which it points.
How beautiful is the body of Christ. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVzc4RGHtfM)
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